


Robot Rescue

by FabulousDalek



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Action/Adventure, Attempt at Humor, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Earth, Episode: e424 Manos: The Hands of Fate, Gen, Humor, Light Angst, No Romance, POV Third Person, Platonic Relationships, Road Trips, Season/Series 11, robot-light
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulousDalek/pseuds/FabulousDalek
Summary: In the not too distant future...  Mike shows up on Joel's doorstep in the middle of the night with the worst news imaginable. The bots are gone, kidnapped, and neither host knows where they are or who took them.*Cue epic adventure music*Joel and Mike, with a little help from some... unexpected friends, embark on the cross-country, cross-continent, and maybe even cross-planetary adventure of a lifetime.By the way, if you're wondering how they eat and breathe, and other science facts... then that's really an odd thing to wonder as they're currently on Earth: haven of oxygen and fast food franchises.
Relationships: Mike Nelson & Joel Robinson
Kudos: 2





	1. A Dark & Stormy Night (Minus the Storms)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a couple of notes before we begin: 
> 
> 1\. As of right now, I'm using Gypsy's original name because it is what I'm used to and because I know the character was named after a pet turtle. However, if you are bothered by this and want to read the story, feel free to politely let me know, and I'll take that into account and may reconsider. I do ask that you keep any comments courteous. 
> 
> 2\. This story takes place during season 11, following the concept of "How did the bots get back into space?" and "What will Joel and Mike do about it?" I haven't actually seen any of season 11, and only a little bit of season 12 that I don't remember well. As such, I'm focusing on the Joel and Mike element of the story, and I ask that you please be forgiving with my depictions of Netflix era characters, as they're mostly based off of my vague impressions, wiki articles, and other fanfics. 
> 
> 3\. This is just a fun thing I'm writing, so the editing is light and there may be plot holes or continuity errors. I can only justify any of these that may appear by stating that the real MST3K has just as many goofs, plot holes, and continuity errors. 
> 
> 4\. I haven't really bothered with a timeline or with aging up Joel and Mike, mostly because I'm having a hard enough time imagining them not wearing their jumpsuits... I can't handle them looking older too!

Joel dreamed about the Satellite of Love so much he could almost convince himself that five years of his life had been nothing but that, a dream. His existence now was so mundane, so like it was before his imprisonment/kidnapping/stint as a lab-rat/best years of his life, that it felt sometimes like he imagined living alone in space with robots he built to keep him company, watching bad movies and doing his best to not let them get to him too much. He managed a fish restaurant now. He’d started working at the bottom, and apparently he was so unassuming-yet-friendly that the higher-ups decided to make him manager.

He’d gone back, of course, to fix the SoL when it was set to self-destruct. That was enough proof that he hadn’t imagined it all. And yet, he’d always wonder if he’d made the right choice. He hoped Mike would enjoy his time in space like he’d done, but to leave Crow and Tom Servo and Gypsy had been hard. They’d spent their whole lives in space, because Joel built them there. Although he’d tinkered around and made a few more things since then, he hadn’t gone near artificial intelligence. He just couldn’t bear the idea of replacing his robot friends.

And so, his life had continued like the life of any other ordinary person who’d spent their whole lives on earth. He hadn’t been watching the broadcasts of Mike, still in space, when Pearl decided to end it all, so he hadn’t known until one day he opened his door to find Crow, Tom, Gypsy, Cambot, and Mike all piled outside, tumbling in onto his welcome mat. From there, they’d set up a bizarre form of co-existence. He helped Mike get a new job and apartment, although Mike had a good bit of money in his bank accounts… apparently he’d been paid the whole time he’d been in space. They’d all got on with their lives to the point that, even when the robotic evidence was staying in his home and right before his eyes, he could almost convince himself that he’d never been to space, that the only difference between him and any single dad he met on the street was that his children were robots, that he was ordinary.

That was, until tonight.

A rapid beeping entered his dream, so he pressed the button on his cash register, knowing that the latest movie must be starting. But as he jumped through the window leading back to the kitchens in the Fish Shop, the beeping changed, going deeper, until it became a knocking sound. It was then that Joel woke up.

Blinking a few times, eyes half open and crusted with sleep, Joel stumbled out of his bedroom to the front door of his apartment, vaguely wondering who’d be knocking in the middle of the night, and if the Mads or anyone else had finally found him and decided to silence him in spite of his keeping quiet about everything that had happened to him for years. A few of his joints creaked a little as he went. The knocking continued. Joel reached the door and peered through the peephole, not believing what he was seeing.

He opened the door, _“Mike?”_

Mike Nelson stood in the hallway of Joel’s apartment building, eyes wide, fist still raised to knock on the door, hair matted to one side like he’d just sprung out of bed, covered in sweat and panting. He dropped his fist.

“The bots,” he said, gasping between words.

“What about them?” Joel asked, his heart pounding. He and Mike lived in the same city. Mike had worked in the Fish shop for a while after the SoL crashed to earth. They’d taken a sort of “joint custody” arrangement with Crow and Tom Servo. Gypsy was living on her own, running her own start-up and daring anyone to question her (they didn’t for fear of being accused of discrimination). Cambot was on a journey to “find himself,” using the solar recharge panels and thrusters Joel installed on him to travel the world. Crow and Tom had been with Mike this week, giving Joel a much needed chance to catch up on sleep. But if something had happened to them…

“I just went to the grocery to get some popcorn, we were out of it and now that they know about it they won’t let us watch movies without it…” Mike was wringing his hands together, speaking faster and faster and his words spiraling further away from relevancy. Joel felt the panic rising up in the two of them and grabbed Mike’s shoulders, shaking them.

“Get to the point man!” he said, shaking Mike until his head rocked with the inertia.

“They’re gone!” Mike shouted.

Joel dropped his hands.

“They’re gone and it’s all my fault,” Mike sank to the floor, his back against the door-frame.

Joel backed away, stumbling backward like he’d been shot. Gone? How could they be gone?

“W-what happened?” his voice came out in little more than a whisper.

“I don’t know exactly.” Mike pulled himself into a sitting position, “I- we came home from the park, and the library… I’d had to run some errands and so I promised them we’d stop there if they were good and they were. Well, Crow set fire to the frozen aisle in the grocery store but that was my fault because I dropped the can of highly flammable gas I was buying and he just couldn’t help himself—”

“Mike… um… d’you think you could get to the point?”

“Oh yeah, sure, sorry.” Mike took a breath, “We came home, and it was all dark, which was odd because I usually leave a light on,”

_What are you a motel 6?_ Joel didn’t say.

“And I thought, ‘that’s odd, I usually leave a light on’ and then someone conked me on the back of the noggin and everything went black. Except it was already black,”

Joel exhaled, his messy hair hovering briefly above his eyes before flopping back down into them.

“And then when I woke up again they were gone… both of them, without a trace,”

“Did you tell anybody?” Joel asked.

“No I came straight here,” Mike said.

“That was for the best I guess,” Joel said, “The police probably wouldn’t respond too well for a missing robot report. D’you know anything about Gypsy and Cambot?”

He was trying to keep his tone calm and relaxed. The thing he always did when under stress. No matter how hard it got, he tried to stay calm and relaxed, because he was the only one he could count on. If he lost his cool, what would he do? And now he wasn’t the only one counting on him, his bots were counting on him too.

“…I heard on the radio on my way over here, something about Gypsy’s company being broken into… I don’t know about Cambot but I guess they got him too…”

“Who would’ve done this?” Joel wondered aloud.

Mike glowered, “I bet it was Pearl… I don’t know how or why, but it has to be her,”

“But didn’t she say it was over when she crashed the satellite?”

“Yeah but who else would it be?”

“Well it can’t be Dr. F or Frank, since they’re both dead,” Joel frowned. He’d only heard of their deaths through Mike, though he saw the evidence for himself when he was last on the satellite, at least in Frank’s case. He even felt bad for them, evil as they were.

“It just doesn’t make any sense!” Mike groaned and hit his fist on the wall.

Joel approached him cautiously, “Why don’t you come in?” he said, “We don’t want to wake up the whole neighborhood,”

Mike looked a bit like he wanted to argue, but Joel’s powerful dad aura won out, and he slumped inside and let Joel close the door.

Fifteen minutes later, the two ex-experiments sat on a pair of worn, heavily scratched bar-stools (scratched from the day Crow and Tom Servo used them for jousting… and from the day they reenacted a circus), each clutching a mug of hot chocolate like the scalding surface of the mug didn’t affect them. Joel ignored the minor burns appearing on his palm and took a sip of the cocoa, gaining a chocolate mustache to go with his real goatee.

“We need to look for clues of some kind,” Mike said, “They’ve got to have left some,”

“Speaking of clues. How is it that they disappeared in the evening and you only got here just now?”

“I think I was out for a few hours,” Mike said, “It still hurts,” He winced as he reached for the back of his head.

“Do you need some ice for it or something?”

“No I don’t think so. I’m just worried is all,”

“So am I,”

They were silent for a moment, wondering what they could say next that would actually get them on the move, doing something away from this faux-granite countertop with its worn down bar-stools. Mike’s still had some remains of command hooks on the legs from when they’d decorated it at Christmas. Joel felt an emptiness building up inside him, a despair he hadn’t felt since _The Castle of Fu Manchu._ His bots had been taken, but they had no idea who’d taken them or where they’d been taken. They also had no real way of finding out.

No. When they’d faced even the worst movies they’d prevailed, because, well, that was what Robinsons did! And Robinsons didn’t give up on each other either.

“I think I have an idea,” he said.


	2. Road Trip of Fate

“Um… Joel?” Mike said, “Hate to burst your bubble of inspiration, but where exactly are we?”

The two of them sat in Joel’s beat up old truck he’d had since going into space (The Mads had sold it, but then gone to great lengths to retrieve it again, though they soon discovered that the $30,000 he’d left in the glove compartment was long gone. Joel had found it in the Gizmonic parking lot when he got back to earth.

“We’re trying to get to Gizmonic Institute, but I think the navigation system I installed might be faulty,” he tapped the device next to him on the dashboard, composed of several carefully folded pieces of paper, some buttons, aluminum foil, some carefully contained plutonium, a plastic touchscreen, and a new titanium alloy antenna. It displayed a series of static followed by a frowny face, “Well I’m sorry but you have to do your job!” he told it.

It displayed another face, this one was scowling. 

“Hey now, don’t you give me attitude,” 

The machine beeped, then went dark. 

“Oh well, that’s just great,” 

“Maybe,” Mike said tentatively, “We should try a map?” He held up a yellowed mini-atlas that had probably been in the truck since the 80s, “Let’s see here.” He flipped over to Minnesota, “Now what road are we on?” 

“Uh…” Joel peered around into the darkness, searching for a road-sign, “Interstate 10,” he said.

Mike was quiet for a moment, the rumpling of the paper map being the only sound in the vehicle, aside from that mysterious ticking noise. Joel knew he should get that checked out, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet, and then this happened. 

“Um, Joel?” Mike said, “There’s no Interstate 10 in Minnesota…” 

Joel briefly took his eyes off the road to glance at him in disbelief, “How can we not be in Minnesota?” 

“I don’t know, you’re the one driving!” 

“I was just following Navi!” 

Navi beeped at him indignantly. 

Mike began hurriedly flipping through the atlas pages, looking for Interstate 10, “Ha! There it is, It’s in Mississippi…” he flipped a few more pages… “and New Mexico…” 

It was then that Joel spotted an exit sign, “Oh no,”

“What?” Mike looked up just as the dreaded sign passed by his window. 

They looked at each other, mouths agape and eyes wide, and said, simultaneously, “We’re in _Texas!_ ” 

\--

Several minutes later, once they stopped screaming in horror, Joel and Mike managed to determine through a combination of convenient road signs, Mike’s mad map mastery, and sheer, dumb luck, that they were in El Paso, Texas, and had somehow traveled not just 500 miles, but also 500 more, over the course of roughly two hours. Gizmonic Institute lay nestled in the middle of nowhere about three hours from where Joel lived.

“Did we enter a time warp or something?” Mike said, “Exit here,”

Joel got over onto the exit ramp. It was the kind that swirled around and left a person slightly dizzy, depositing them in the middle of the desert almost like they’d gone through a portal to another dimension. 

“Do those exist?” he wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Very little surprised him at this point… except Crow and Tom Servo. They were always full of surprises. 

“Well I became a being of pure energy and wound up 500 years in the future… oh and also in Ancient Rome. Well, Pearl was in Ancient Rome, I was in space. The whole time,” 

“As a being of pure energy?” 

“Oh no, we got bored of that and ditched it. Crow got bored first, but we all did eventually. It was like our adventures were supposed to end but then… they just didn’t.” 

“I know what you mean,” Joel said, as he made a turn onto a county road. He wasn’t sure why he turned, only that it seemed right at the time, “After my first year on the satellite, all sorts of stuff changed all at once. The Mads sent up all these supplies to renovate stuff, and these new jumpsuits in different colors. Except then it felt like I’d always had that stuff, and the Satellite of Love always looked like that. I still remembered how it was, but it was… weird,” 

A white sign loomed out of the darkness ahead. It looked oddly familiar to Joel, but he couldn’t quite place it. 

“Valley Loog?” Mike said, “Oh, lodge… You think we should find a place to stay the night?” 

“Probably, though there’s probably not much night left,” He turned onto the road. 

They drove on, passing what felt like the same hills and the same parked car containing an enthusiastically kissing couple at least three times. The sky gradually lightened behind them, but ahead several stars still glittered. Joel reach a fork and turned right. 

“Are we still on the highway?” Mike asked. 

“No I turned off it a while ago,” Joel said, staring straight ahead. 

Mike shifted in his seat, “Joel,” he said slowly, “Why did we turn off the highway?” 

Joel felt himself remove his foot from the gas. The truck slowed, “I… don’t know,” 

Mike leaned back in his seat, “Well this certainly seems like the beginning of a horror movie,” 

“A very familiar horror movie,” Joel murmured, though he still didn’t know why this road in Texas felt so familiar… or that house up ahead… 

“Which means we definitely shouldn’t stop at this house up here,” 

But just as Mike said it, the engine of the truck let out a horrible sound like a clunk and a screech had a baby, then died. 

They rolled to a stop. 

In place of the rumbling sounds of the truck, an eerie, rapid piano music emanated from the house, growing steadily louder. 

“Do you… hear that?” Mike asked, peering out the window at the house. 

“Oh no…” Joel knew that music. It had actually haunted several of his nightmares, even though the owner of the theme wasn’t all that scary.

A figure emerged in the doorway of the house, stooped over, bow-legged with huge, goat-like knees. He wobbled his way over to the truck, taking a good ten minutes to do so. Joel cranked down the window. 

“I aM ToRgO,” said Torgo, “I tAkE cArE oF tHe PlAcE wHiLe ThE mAsTeR iS aWaY,” He pointed an ominous finger at the two of them, “ThE mAsTeR wOuLd NoT aPpRoVe Of YoU.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a bit of a backstory behind Joel's truck. I watched a YouTube compilation of all of the season 0 host segments, and saw the one about the Mads selling Joel's vehicle. Somehow, I thought I heard them say it was a truck, though a later Wiki search said it was a car. By that point however, I was emotionally attached to Joel's beat up old truck, and decided to keep it.


	3. "Manos" The Hands of Fate

"Well Torgo," Joel said as politely as possible, even though he now knew exactly what movie all of the strange happenings reminded him of, "We'd be happy to get out of here and leave you alone, but our truck just broke down so we'll have to repair it."

He turned to Mike, "Could you get the toolbox out of the bed please?"

Mike nodded slowly, staring a Torgo. Joel and the bots had been forced to watch _"Manos" The Hands of Fate_ , about a year before he escaped and Mike took his place. The bots may have told Mike about _Manos_ , but he might not realize the full gravity of the situation, except that they had, in fact, walked in on a horror movie plot. He didn't even have time to think about how it was possible.

"yOu CaNnOt StAy HeRe!" Torgo insisted, waving his weird hand-stick thing.

"We don't want to stay here, Torgo, we just have to fix our truck. Look, we'll stay right here with the truck. We won't even go in the house. And when its fixed, we'll leave, the Master won't even have to know,"

"The... tHe MaStEr AlWaYs KnOwS,"

"Torgo," Joel shook his head as if to ward off a fly, the music was really getting to him, "We don't want the Master bothered any more than you do, but we can't leave until our truck is fixed, so we're stuck," he paused, considering, "Maybe... maybe we could help you,"

"hElP?" Torgo asked. Mike looked up quickly from where he was digging through the truck bed.

"Well..." Joel said, "if... if you let us fix our truck without getting us killed or mind-controlled or whatever else... then... well... then maybe you could come with us,"

_"Joel"_ Mike hissed, _"We only have two seats,"_

"You could ride in one of the fold down seats in the back here, and then the Master wouldn't bother you anymore. You might could even find a girl who'd actually like you... if you learned not to be super creepy of course,"

Torgo's strange brow furrowed in concentration, then he waddled toward the truck bed, "I wIlL gEt YoUr BaGs," 

"Wait, what?"

But Torgo was already digging through the truck bed, moving at an uncharacteristically rapid speed. He grabbed the two duffle bags tossed back there, then tore the tool box right out of Mike's hand.

"Hey!"

Torgo shuffled toward the house, Mike chasing after him, until he tripped over seemingly nothing, leaving Torgo free to make his slow, awkward, and incredibly difficult to watch escape with their stuff.

After seeing that, due to remarkable and suspicious coincidences, he wouldn't be able to get into the house, Mike made his way back to the truck, wincing whenever he stepped with his left foot and walking almost like their thieving caretaker.

"What just happened?" he asked, panting.

"It's almost like he's programed to take people into the house regardless of whether they'll be wanted or not," Joel mused, "It is very odd though, because the Master wouldn't want to marry either of us," 

"Wait... marry? Will you PLEASE explain what's going on here?"

"Did Crow and Servo ever tell you about _'Manos' the Hands of Fate?_ "

Mike stared blankly.

"Huh, I guess it traumatized them worse than I thought," he ignored the pang of worry and regret from not knowing where his robots were anymore, and being even further from them than he had been, "Basically, it was one of the worst movies we were ever forced to watch, and it took place here, in El Paso, and Torgo was one of the characters, and well, um, everything here looks like it's part of the movie,"

"Okaaaaay," Mike said slowly, as though mentally debating whether this was too strange to be reality or if he'd encountered enough strange and impossible things already and that he should just go with it, "So you're saying that we're in a movie,"

"I think so," Joel said.

The last of the stars faded from the sky behind the house as the sky lightened behind them.

"So who exactly are these people and why does everything about this seem to be of the cheapest quality known to man?"

" _Manos_ was one of the worst movies we were forced to watch. It took place and was filmed in Texas, apparently by a man who didn't know anything about making movies, in order to win a bet. That doesn't explain why Torgo is actually here though. The Master was the evil guy who served some sort of god named Manos, but he seemed more interested in having a harem of brides he picked up from every young woman who came to the area,"

"I guess this isn't the weirdest thing I've encountered,"

"I had thought Torgo had opened a pizza business, it's odd that he's back here unless this takes place before the movie,"

"Maybe the movie was based off real events and then took some liberties with the plot?" Mike ran a hand through his hair, staring disbelievingly at the house.

"ToRgO dId RuN a PiZzA pLaCe," Torgo said.

Mike and Joel jumped, Mike slamming against the door of the truck, then jumping back clutching his arm.

"Ow, ow, ow,"

"Torgo!? How did you sneak up on us without your theme music?"

"iT hAs A deLaY,"

And sure enough, Joel heard the music faintly in the background, growing gradually louder.

"That's... odd," He said.

"wOuLd YoU bE iNtErEsTeD iN oUr CoNtInEnTaL bReAkFaSt?"

Joel and Mike looked at each other. Neither wanted to go in the house, breakfast or no, but if they wanted to fix the truck, Joel had to get to the tools, which Torgo had "helpfully" put in the house. A continental breakfast would be a good excuse.

Mike and Joel looked at each other in silent agreement.

"Sure Torgo, we'll come have your continental breakfast," Mike said with a forced smile.

Joel climbed out of the car and the two of them followed Torgo's slow pace into the dilapidated house. Every plank of the front porch sagged with age and rot, and every window except for one had lost its shutters. They lay piled in a faded blue heap on the porch, with the one remaining shutter dangling from one nail on one of the windows next to the front door, which had a hole in one pane just the right size for a baseball bat or a walking stick with a hand shape on one end.

Mike stepped over the threshold, followed by Joel, to enter the same dingy living area Joel recognized from the movie. The couch had several springs sticking out of it and the wall above it had several patches and holes. He wondered just what Torgo had been taking care of around here, since the house was in such disrepair. He could hear him thumping around the kitchen, various pots and pans clanging as if he were trying to start a kitchen band instead of making breakfast.

"Let's look around for our bags," Joel said.

"Yeah but don't split up. I know THAT much," Mike said.

But a quick scan of the room revealed no sign of their bags, nor, more importantly, the toolbox. Torgo was still working in the kitchen, and, horror of horrors, for some reason seemed to be singing some song that clashed horribly with his theme music.

"Should we go check the other rooms?" Mike asked, eyeing the door at the end of the living room.

Joel was about to agree, the bags were probably upstairs in the bedrooms, though of course they'd have to find them, the stairs and hallways leading to the bedrooms were never shown in the movie, so he didn't know where they were, though he'd seen the rest of this house far too many times, despite only seeing the movie once. He glanced around the room one last time, for some reason reluctant to leave it, when he noticed some things he had known were there, but for some reason he hadn't noticed the last time he was in the room. Creepy, cult things. An incense bowl, some statues that looked like they were made by an elementary school pottery class, and one, large painting.

Joel stopped on his way to the door that presumably led to the stairwell, staring at the painting, although the sane part of him told him there was no reason to do so, "You know, this painting just looked like a kid did it with finger paints in the movie, but now that I'm here looking at it... it is really..." but he couldn't seem to find the words to describe how the painting was exactly.

He did, in spite of all his knowledge that the painting was bad, and from the worst movie in existence, find that the painting, for some inexplicable reason, terrified him.

"Mike," he said, "Have you seen this painting?"

The dog in the painting looked like nothing more than an ordinary dog. Joel knew it looked like an ordinary dog in both painting and reality, but staring at the portrait, the dog seemed like a hellhound from the depths of whatever pit Manos was supposed to live in. The Master, a rather average, albeit somewhat creepy and evil, man in reality, seemed to stare into his very soul.

He sensed Mike approach behind him (he'd grown accustomed to people sneaking up on him living with Tom Servo and Crow) to look at the painting.

"It's so..." Mike shuddered.

"Oh, it's affecting you to?"

"Affecting me? Why wouldn't it affect me it's the freakiest looking dog I've ever seen,"

"But it's not," Joel said, "It's not _really_ scary... we're just going through all the motions that the characters in _Manos_ did. It's like a time-loop but with a movie!"

"It sounds to me like all the more reason for us to get out of here," Mike said, slowly backing away. He turned and started running for the door. Joel leapt after him in a sort of flying tackle, but as Mike was bigger and Joel didn't actually know how to tackle people, he wound up getting a half piggy back ride before slipping off. Fortunately, it was enough to stop Mike from running out of the house.

"We gotta... stay focused..." he said from the ground, panting.

Mike shook his head, then blinked several times, just now realizing what he'd been about to do. He stumbled back a little when he saw Joel on the floor, "Um... sorry about that, I kinda lost my head there. Number one horror movie rule is to not split up anyway," He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, then extended his hand to Joel.

Joel took it and Mike helped him up; his eyes fell on the painting again.

"Joel..." he heard Mike saying, but he didn't pay attention. A sudden clang from the kitchen brought him back to his senses.

"The tool box?" Mike said.

"Right, the tool box."

They found the tools and their duffle bags thrown haphazardly into a room upstairs. Mike slung one duffel bag over each shoulder and Joel picked up the tool box. They almost made it back out the door when Torgo emerged from the kitchen wearing a "kiss the cook" apron decorated with pizza slices and smoke billowing behind him.

"More like run away in fear from the cook," Mike muttered. Torgo didn't seem to hear him.

"Breakfast is ready," he said, before saying inexplicably, "it will be dark soon,"

Joel frowned. He wasn't sure why, but he felt an overwhelming pity for Torgo. He didn't know his story, if he even had one, but how could any good story end in perpetual service to a z movie villain? Maybe he could empathize after being trapped in space in service to his own "masters," ...or maybe he'd finally cracked. Either way, he wanted to help Torgo, creepy and off putting as he was, if he could.

"I guess we have time for some breakfast, what do you think, Mike?"

"I think we're on a bit of a time sensitive mission here?" Mike said.

Joel knew Mike was right, and yet, "Do you have waffles?"

Five minutes later, Joel sat at a heavily scratched particle board table with a large, albeit burnt, waffle, some expired butter and syrup, and a mug of hot water with a splash of coffee. Mike tapped his foot on the linoleum. He stared grumpily into his own mug, his own plate of delicious waffle lying abandoned before him. Torgo had busied himself doing some work about the house, his theme music following him around and easily alerting Joel and Mike whenever he came close to them.

Mike leaned close to Joel the next time Torgo passed, "Does he do ANY work around here?"

Joel glanced over and saw that Torgo had busied himself in wiping off the counter with a rag. The only problem was he used a rag covered in some sort of black substance, whether dirt or something more sinister, and he only seemed to successfully wipe about a third of the counter.

Joel savored every bite of his waffles. When he was finished, he looked up to find Mike had fallen asleep with his face on his syrupy waffles. Joel rose from the table, grabbing his tool box. He looked back at Mike. He should probably wake him up, after all, horror movie rule number one, but then again, it was still morning, the Master shouldn't be out and about yet, and Mike had been up all night. Joel was certainly tired too, but he knew he needed to get the truck repaired, so he hoisted the tool box and went outside.


End file.
